Barbara Kastelein in Acapulco Sunday December 18, 2005 The Observer At the age of 12 Iris Alvarez has made history by becoming both the first girl and the youngest diver to take part in a 70-year-old tradition – diving 59 feet off La Quebrada rock in Acapulco, Mexico. Last week, in front...

Barbara is also contributing writer for the coffee table guidebook to Mexico 52 fines de Semana (Editorial Mapas, 2007 and 2005) and continues to write for Mapas publications, especially revista Travesias, her last article being on Acapulco (February 2010). Click here to...

Quien diga que no se puede vivir del nombre y de los recuerdos, no conoce el mejor lado de Acapulco. Fue el primer destino turístico de México, la primera playa tropical de Norteamérica, y los especuladores aseguran que está viendo su tercer renacimiento. Pero, al margen de los desarrollos...

Por Barbara Kastelein Traducción de Jessica Juárez I. Tendida en mi cama en los cálidos brazos de la Reina de la Riviera Mexicana, me desperté sin la alarma a las 7:25 am con un pensamiento en la mente: reunirme con un clavadista que me había invitado a verlo practicar en La Quebrada, en...

The stars still shine on and in Acapulco. Legends lie baking in the sun and snooze in its crumbling facades, from John Wayne to Cantinflas, the young Liz Taylor to the sultry Dolores del Rio, Pedro Infante to Frank Sinatra … The list mingles Hollywood with Los Pinos, Hugh Heffner’s bunnies...

MEXICO CITY–The Mexican Environment Ministry (SEMARNAT) is preparing to publish a final regulation setting criteria for the disposal of hazardous waste–especially from extractive industries–in salt dome caverns, a move designed to enable construction of new waste containment...

One can learn about regional textiles, cacti, fiestas, art, astronomical observation, musical groups and choral associations, orchids, indigenous ceremonies, ceramics, different trees, Olmecs, as well as join in culinary workshops and balloon flights.This is just a small taster of...

Between 1999 and 2005 Barbara worked on updating seven guidebooks with Fodor’s Travel Publications (Random House, NY). She is also co-author of the second edition of the guidebook México: Health and Safety Travel Guide (MedToGo, USA, March 2007). Barbara Kastelein is in the 2005 book (as...

No es exagerado decir que Las Brisas era el lugar favorito para vacacionar en los días de Marilyn, la minifalda u el alunizaje. ¿Y qué podía ser mejor que un hotel rosa en lo alto de una colina, en sintonía con el espíritu de la época? Este lugar es una leyenda viviente sin igual,...

Client:  planeta.com MEXICO — One of the country’s first ecotourism initiatives to combine government, private initiative and organized civil society has come to fruition in the national park area around the volcanoes of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. Three years in the making,...

One of Barbara’s early specialities (2000) as a travel writer was travelling with small children. She wrote a monthly column on this topic with the magazine BBMundo (Editorial Mapas, Mexico), but also contributed many articles on the pleasures and challenges of tourism with babes in arms...

Bolding Books, London, 2003; Grupo Océano, in Spanish, 2004; second edition, September 2007 Available via...